A Picture Is Worth Your Life
by Sheo Darren
Summary: Is a picture of Claes decked up as a farmer really worth your life? Triela seems to think so. A humor fic with copious quantities of OOCness and TrielaXHilshire. Dedicated to Miiko Ashida and Sintendo, without whose works I would never have made this.


Claes sighed. She wiped away the accumulated sweat on her forehead and brushed a stray frond of her blue-black hair back in place. _This is hot work. I wonder if I can rope Triela and Henrietta into helping me._

She glanced over her shoulder.

**  
**Triela wished for a camera.

It wasn't every day one saw the stoic Claes dressed in a farmer's faded jumpers, boots and gloves and straw hat, rake on one shoulder and bucket in hand, busy tending her private slice of Eden. Add a black-and-white Fresian dairy cow in the background, munching on the grass, and the scene would be perfect.

"Triela?"

Conveniently, Henrietta had exactly what the blonde girl needed. The camera, not the cow– although that last, too, would have been precious.

_Thank you, Giuseppe… now, that Kodak moment…_

**  
**Claes blinked.

CLICK.

**  
A Picture Is Worth Your Life**

**  
Author Note:** Partly based off the fan fic and my own insomnia. Written mainly for humor. Definitely contains OOC moments.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Gunslinger Girl.

**Dedication:** To Sintendo, who thought up the funny image of Farmer Claes, but couldn't think of any story for her: here it is, buddy. And to Miiko Ashida and her story "Dress Up": thanks for giving me the idea to resolve the impasse at the end of the story.

**  
**"Triela."

"Hm? What is it, Claes?"

"Where are the pictures?"

"What pictures?"

"The pictures you took of me in that costume."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Is that so?"

"Yes."

Claes seemed convinced. But Triela was not too sure.

**  
**Later, the tear-stricken Henrietta burst into her room and promptly sobbed on Triela's shoulder.

"Triela! Claes bullied me! She wanted me to give her the pictures! I said I didn't have them, but she didn't seem to believe me–"

_This is why kids can't be relied on to keep a secret, _Triela pointedly thought to herself, patting her friend's back reassuringly.

**  
**"Triela. The pictures. Give them to me now."

"What pictures?"

"This is your last warning. If you do not turn them over to me–"

"Are you going to declare war on me or something?"

"Yes."

**  
**_Some war this turned out to be_. Nothing changed. Claes had not expressed any overt hostility or direct attempt to take away the pictures from Triela.

Besides, even if she did try, they were in a very secure place. No sweat.

**  
**Thee bone-tired Triela shuffled into the room for some well-earned rest. Claes appeared completely asleep. _Must have finished that new romance novel she'd been browsing through yesterday. Nice to know she hasn't taken her threat seriously._

She moved to her bunk. Froze.

Her teddy bears had been moved.

No one else would have noticed. But Triela was obsessive when it came to stuff she got from Hilshire. (She would deny the logical extension that she placed great value on him due the care she expended on his gifts.) She was sure they had not just been moved out place, but also rearranged to make her think that nothing was amiss. But she knew. She knew.

_Who did it?_

Suspicious baby blue eyes strayed to the still form occupying the top bunk.

**  
**Her dresser was the next victim. She nearly didn't notice, thinking her suspect might have gone over her teddy bears again– this time with a knife. Then she realized that her only pair of pajamas (again, a gift from Hilshire) were slightly rumpled.

She could have sworn she smelled Claes' handiwork. _Maybe I can ask Beatrice to check it out for me._

_I'm starting to get paranoid; I'm starting to go crazy…_

**  
**"Hmm. I've checked her bears, her clothes and her bunk. The pictures are not there. Then that means… I see. It's absurdly simple yet very effective."

Spectacles gleamed.

"The pictures are _on_ her."

**  
**Not fifteen minutes asleep, Triela groggily woke from a disturbing dream where Hilshire was about to marry Ferro and Priscilla both, with herself as a flower girl, albeit tied up and gagged to prevent protest.

_Just what I needed, Hilshire polluting my sleep as well as my waking–_

A dark form loomed menacingly over her, hands poised over her chest as if to extract her most precious possession.

**  
**Triela's scream woke up everyone at the base. Hilshire, enjoying a temporary respite from overtime work, was the first on the scene, gun drawn. He found his blonde pajama-clad (incidentally it was the one he gave her) ward shrieking her head off at her nonplussed roommate.

"Damn it, Claes! What the hell was that all about?"

"What are you talking about?"

"That was you, wasn't it? You're trying to scare me to death!"

"I have no idea what you are shouting about."

"Don't play innocent with me!"

"Triela," Hilshire began, but the irate girl cut him off.

"And you! It's your fault I don't get any rest at all! You don't let me off in my waking hours, and now you do the same in my dreams as well! Just leave me alone!" Triela actually sobbed, though half of her tears were probably faked.

The perplexed Hilshire blinked, then turned to the equally mystified Giuseppe and Amadeo. "What did I do?"

**  
**She was starting to slide into mania. Triela had taken to sleeping with one eye open lest her roommate kill her- or, worse, finally wrest the hard-won photos away from her.

Already she was entertaining doubt. _These pictures are not worth my sanity. Maybe I should just give them up…_

But one glance at Claes dressed like a Kansas farmer, the photo creased innumerably from having been hidden in her suits but still as funny as ever, steadied her shot nerves.

_No. They're staying right here with me._

**  
**"Hilshire?" Claes looked rather fey. Having seen the same look on Triela's face right before she dropped a bombshell on him, Hilshire considered himself forewarned. "I have a favor."

**  
**Triela regarded her handler's offering as tantamount to surrender on her part. "What's this?" she suspiciously demanded.

"I'm trading you this for all your pictures of Claes."

"What pictures?"

Hilshire actually smiled. "Would you believe that Claes suggested this? It's 'beneficial to all sides', as she herself said."

"No deal."

"At least open the box and take a look first. Then decide."

Still suspicious that she was being had, Triela did open the package.

She stared.

"Hilshire!"

**  
**Claes was content. So was Hilshire.

"Thanks for the advice, Claes. Triela really liked the nightgowns. Kicked me out of the room so that she could try them on at once."

"You're welcome."

"So, is that all of them?" He meant the pictures.

"I think so."

**  
**With Rico asleep and the door locked, Henrietta took her diary from beneath the pillow. Tucked between two pages towards the first one-third was a photo.

Henrietta smiled.

_My precious…_


End file.
